CoD vs some other sims that model Kent?

[Psycho_Ch!cken]

I only have experience programming Unreal, but if it were me, rather than maintaining permanent collision on trees, I'd instead be setting each aircraft as the trigger. Aircraft are already doing a whole bunch of checks per tick, I'd set them to also check for the existence of trees/buildings/whatever within a set radius (based on point of origin) and then enable collision for any detected (disabling any that are active but no longer within said radius), which would keep the number of active "objects" to a minimum.

That said, I have no idea how actors are setup and controlled in this engine, so my methods may be insanely difficult or completely impossible as it stands. Whoever said that they need to get better programmers though is talking out their arse. The ones they have may well be exceptional, but if the engine they're working with was written by someone else and is a mess, then that'll put serious limitations on anyone.